Crossing Borders

Written by Pauliina Puranen

Edit: The live performances are cancelled due to the local health instructions. A video recording will be sent next year to those who had signed up for the performances.

Theatre performance “Languages of Belonging” created in the Crossing Borders theatre workshops will be performed at Jyväskylä Art Museum on Friday December 18^th and Saturday December 19^th. The performance is based on multilingual workshops where the participants shared their ideas and experiences of how language, belonging and exclusion are entwined.

The performance is directed by Annu Sankilampi. The actors in the performance are Abobaker, Amanuel, Arjane, Arpan, Hamid, Kausani, Saara, and Tiinu. There will be a short discussion after the performance, and the total duration of the performance is approximately an hour. The show times are as follows:

• Friday December 18^th at 17.00,
• Saturday December 19^th at 14.00,
• Saturday December 19^th at 15.30.

Due to the current situation, the number of audience is limited. For every performance there are 10 available spots in the audience. You can reserve your place in the performance by signing up using this link: https://www.lyyti.fi/reg/Language_of_Belonging_1502/en Please wear a mask when coming to see the performance.

The performance is divided into three scenes that are performed in different spaces at the museum. The audience is guided from one scene to another by keeping safe distances.

The performance is part of the Crossing Borders research project (2017–2021) based at the University of Jyväskylä and funded by the Academy of Finland. It is produced in collaboration with the Multicultural Center Gloria and Jyväskylä Art Museum.

Read more about the current Jyväskylä Art Museum exhibition “Matkalla maan keskipisteeseen” (“Notions of Place – From Belonging to Displacement”) here: https://matkallamaankeskipisteeseen.fi/en/Top of Form

Written by Pauliina Puranen

The Crossing Borders project collaborates with Jyväskylä Art Museum and their new exhibition “Matkalla maan keskipisteeseen” (“Journey to the centre of the land”). (Click here to access the website.) The exhibition opened on September 19^th 2020 and can be visited until March 14^th 2021. The exhibition features art discussing belonging and non-belonging by 29 Finnish and international artists and artist duos. It includes e.g. video installations, drawings, paintings, photography, and dance performances.

The Crossing Borders team will give a lecture on the themes of belonging at the exhibition on Thursday October 29^th at 16.30–17.30. We will also present some of the results of the previous artist, writing, and film workshops and the ongoing study. (Click here to access the lecture website in Finnish.)

The theatre performance produced in the Crossing Borders theatre workshops in autumn 2020 will also be performed at the Art Museum on Friday December 18^th and Saturday December 19^th.

Everybody welcome!

Written by Urho Tulonen

Ali Alawad is an Iraqi musician and Alpo Aaltokoski a Finnish choreographer and dancer. They met in Finland during Ali’s asylum application, but were never able to perform together. To avoid forced deportation, Ali had to flee Finland two weeks before the first night in Helsinki. The performance is still taking place, and Ali is singing and playing oud via video projection. The following blogpost is written by Mike Baynham, who saw Ali and Alpo in the international Fringe Festival in Edinburgh (https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/ali-and-alpo , watch a video clip http://www.aaltokoskicompany.fi/ohjelmisto-item/ali-alpo-2/of the performance).

 

لا ينظرون وراءهم ليودعوا منفى،
فان أمامهم منفى  
[محمود درويش]

They don’t look back to say goodbye to exile, since they are heading towards exile,

[Mahmoud Darwish]

 

STAGE DIRECTIONS  

Edinburgh. Summerhall. Afternoon. The stage dark and rectangular, walls hung with curtains of black fabric, as if the afternoon, quenched, is mourning daylight, the air slightly smoky from an earlier performance. A space that feels tired, used, like an unmade bed. A space of repetition. A gauze curtain covers half the stage. The mood: desolate. Vacant. Empty.  

THE DANCER  

Twisting. Discordance. Discomfort. The dancer struggling backwards, step by painful step, as if a cipher blown backward by a powerful wind, an unimaginable force which contorts his body like a face in agony. His body a contorted face. Doing the work of a face. Blown back, distorted into unexpected shapes, in a wind tunnel of feeling. Sometimes on the ground, legs splayed out and upwards like a stricken insect, body twisted, holding an unbearable tension, a tension that sometimes breaks out into moans and grunts, uncharacteristic of a dancer. The introductory music, atonal, evoking this tension, this pain, this struggle forward which is also a struggle back.   Beauty erupts. Alpo aspiring upwards his arms like the branches of a tree painfully growing, reaching out to hold onto the air, to fold the air in his arms, to grasp what escapes him. Dancing that absence. The muscles of his back curved and rippling like the bark of a tree trunk. Cthonic. Rooted. In the topmost branches his hands flutter like birds released.   A story untold, perhaps untellable, held in the muscles, the nerves. On the skin. Bone deep. Visceral.  

THE MUSICIAN/SINGER  

علي Ali all lightness and depth, both presence and absence. His image makes him present, appearing and disappearing, simultaneously projected twice, once on the translucent gauze screen, again on the back wall of the stage. The plucked notes of the oud emerge from the void, willed yet unexpected, unbearably plangent and precise, to gather in the darkness, the air, the tension, weaving it into a melody which the voice joins, taking us deep. Its richness, range and timbre a pulling together. His voice, a darkness of feeling floats through the music, in the agonised concentration of the singer, as the words ripple, his breath making each one of us aware of the air we are breathing. Each breath. The breath we share. The tension, agony, sweetness of his voice made visible in his face. His face dancing pain. His voice, the music carry us forward, giving that pain and feeling a shape, a sense, a comfort. We are held. His voice, the music both holding us and taking us towards a limit. A limit within which they fleetingly connect, in which the dancer and the singer swim.  

DANCER/MUSICIAN/AUDIENCE

Here modes collide like planets and in collision shape each other, both digging deeper, well beyond intention, beyond the intention to collaborate. Call it a collision of modes if you like, both a means and a meaning of holding, feeling and speaking pain. Out of collision some bruise, deep held, breaks out, erupts, some contagion of grief on the skin, something speaks.   As the credits roll, the unspoken story, the absence of Ali the oud player and singer is made palpable. Briefly Ali and Alpo are together again in the same timespace, the same medium. We see them on screen smiling, exchanging a hug. An ordinary hug. Happy days. Here we feel cheated by the forces of distortion that shape lives. Forces that Alpo struggles with through his body, that Ali shapes and gives form to in his music. Both taking us to the very edge of pain and back again. What is sweeter for the artist who has taken themself and their audience to the edge and back than to return, like a diver breaking the surface and taking welcome gulps of air, to stand sweating and acknowledge the cheers and plaudits of those who have gone deep with them. The cruelty of the asylum process cheats Ali of this and cheats us of his presence. Cheats Alpo of Ali. Ali of Alpo. Cheats us of Ali and Alpo together. We feel cheated. Cheated.  

Written by Tuija Saresma, Translation: Urho Tulonen

The Crossing Borders exhibition, organized as a part of an academic research project between 7.2.–3.3.2019 (link: https://jyunity.fi/ajassa/kannanottoja-kuulumiseen-rajojen-yli-nayttelyssa/) was visited by over 700 patrons. The visitors were given the opportunity to fill out a form in which they could give feedback on the thoughts and feelings that the exhibition provoked in them, as well as elaborate on their ideas related to the concept of belonging.

In one section of the form the visitors were asked whether they were especially moved by some specific part of the exhibition. The visitors were also questioned about whether they felt that some central theme related to the concept of belonging was missing from the exhibition, and if they were left wanting something more. Finally, the visitors were asked who they would recommend the exhibition to.

Based on the feedback forms, the reception was almost entirely positive. The exhibition was praised as a powerful, engaging, relatable, impressive and memorable whole.

A touching exhibition

The exhibition was described as interesting, thought provoking, multifaceted, surprising and interestingly curated, and the visitors expressed hopes that this “great and invaluable work” would be continued in the future. This feeling resounded throughout the feedback, even in cases where the respondents did not understand or respond to each individual part of the exhibition.

The exhibition provoked strong emotions in most respondents, ranging from wholly positive to in some ways negative or conflicting ones. The exhibition was experienced as both abrasive and comforting. It brought up feelings of both sadness and happiness and was experienced as relatable and touching. For some it was disturbing, for others non-threatening, and some even felt inspired by it. Overall, the reactions were extremely varied and they covered a plethora of different emotions.

Roused by the exhibition, the respondents contemplated upon both their own experiences as well as those of their peers, while also pondering on the subjectivity of experiencing belonging. This aroused the respondents to also contemplate the broader meanings and potential of art.

Many patrons were inspired by the exhibition to contemplate upon their own sense of belonging or non-belonging, as well as its multi-dimensional and fragile nature. Overall a sense of belonging was hailed as one of the most important experiences one can have in life – as something that is simultaneously mundane and the very basis of existence.

The many sides of belonging

The ambiguity of the concept of belonging became emphasized: while belonging was experienced as things such as cherishing those close to you and communality, it also brought up some conflicting emotions, such as loneliness and a feeling of being threatened. Belonging was perceived as something that is simultaneously important and difficult.

Belonging was also not seen as something that one can take for granted, but as something that has to be constantly worked on. The concept of belonging also brought up some negative associations and questions: Does one have to belong somewhere? What if one experiences detachment more than belonging? The abstract nature of belonging and its ambiguity caused sadness and made some people question their own sense of belonging.

Many patrons noted that the exhibition had caused them to dwell on these themes and that it raised many questions and themes to contemplate upon later on.

We asked the patrons whether some part of the exhibition was especially emotional or thought provoking for them. Many of the respondents emphasized that their experience was not reducible to a single element within the exhibition, but rather its entirety. However, a significant proportion of respondents were in fact able to point out a certain piece within the exhibition that they felt was especially important for them. This praise was spread out equally between all the artworks presented at the exhibition: the paintings, installations, sculptures, as well as the video- and sound art pieces.

You can’t cover everything

Most of the respondents of the questionnaire did not provide an answer to the question regarding whether they felt that some important theme related to belonging was missing from the exhibition. Many respondents felt that the exhibition was not lacking in this sense and that the subject of belonging was covered exhaustively and comprehensively. Many felt that there was a great number of varying approaches to the overarching theme.

It would be practically impossible to cover all the dimensions of belonging in a single exhibition, and that was never the goal of the project. However, from the viewpoint of a researcher, it is interesting to examine what the few people who had responded to this question differently felt was missing.

Some noted that the historical and spiritual approaches to the concept of belonging were missing. Numerous respondents would have hoped to have seen stories or viewpoints regarding belonging that would have been representative of minority members or people in vulnerable statuses. Additionally the generational theme, as well as that of belonging to a certain family or lineage was mentioned as being missing from the exhibition. The high representation and even saturation of academic and well-educated voices was also critiqued, and some respondents hoped to see more works produced from the context of “other cultures”.

The exhibition was successful in many ways

All in all the reception was very positive. Many patrons recommended the exhibition for simply everyone, but especially those who can take their sense of belonging for granted.

The exhibition was also a success from the point of view of the Jyväskylä Art Museum. With over 700 visitors, this was the second most popular exhibition in the Ratamo gallery. The exhibition was of high artistic standard and it brought many new patrons to the gallery.

(See also the teaser of the exhibition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCcIsqCYn18 and the article regarding the exhibition by the newspaper Keskisuomalainen: https://www.ksml.fi/kulttuuri/Rajojen-yli-n%C3%A4yttely-pohtii-mik%C3%A4-saa-ihmisen-tuntemaan-kuuluvansa-tiettyyn-paikkaan-%E2%80%93-20-taiteilijan-n%C3%A4kemyksi%C3%A4-galleria-Ratamossa/1325608)

Written by Jessica Bradley

Jessica is Lecturer in Literacies in the School of Education at the University of Sheffield. Her current research focuses on creative inquiry and linguistic landscapes in collaborative research with young people. She co-convenes the AILA ReN in Creative Inquiry and Applied Linguistics.

What does it mean to belong? And how do we understand belonging? I was invited to see the exhibition developed as part of the Crossing Borders project, led by Sari Pöyhönen, Professor in the Centre for Applied Language Studies at the University of Jyväskylä, working with a multidisciplinary team of researchers in social sciences, film, cultural memory and visual cultures. The exhibition was guided by the research questions. How do people belong in physical, social and virtual spaces? And, furthermore, how do they talk about belonging and non-belonging? And why might this matter? What role might artistic practice play in facilitating the expression and performance of belonging?

The exhibition took place in the Galleria Ratamo in the centre of Jyväskylä, close to the station. I visit with Sari and with my 6-year old daughter who has come with me to Finland. We’ve spent a couple of days at the Ethnotwist conference at which I have presented a paper about ethnography in the context of arts production and performance. We’ve been fortunate to visit at a time of year when the snow is deep and we walk over a frozen lake, as if walking over the moon. The temperature has just started to rise from what – to us – have seemed extreme and almost otherworldly minuses and at times we sink into the softening snow, sink in over our boots. This sinking feeling is intense and I remember the warnings from my childhood to never walk on frozen lakes. Of course, the ice is so far down, thick and frozen solid. But sinking into snow – the sensation of sinking into snow – is something very particular and alien. As we walk through the city to the gallery Sari warns us to stay away from the sides of the buildings in case a sudden block of snow falls. I watch a drift fall from a block of flats, from a distance, safely far away. There are tall piles of snow, greying with dirt, stacked up by the path leading to the gallery. Two days ago these piles were solid – if we had climbed on them, it would have been like climbing a mountain. We had taken photos just the day before in front of the church of my daughter climbing the snow mountains. Today we would probably sink. We don’t try it. I imagine my daughter sinking into a snowdrift – ‘don’t climb these ones’.

In Spring 2018 the Crossing Borders research team held a series of community workshops across three areas: in film, visual arts and writing. A number of the pieces created through these three strands of workshops form the core of the exhibition and those participating in the workshops are therefore co-collaborators, or co-constructors of the exhibition. Named in the guide. Each has a page with an introduction to themselves and their artworks and each has the space to explain their rationale in their own way. This ethos of co-collaboration is central to the project’s aims and objectives. Here there are blurred lines between disciplines and approaches, between researcher and participant, between artist and participant. Co-production (e.g. Facer & Enright, 2016; Facer & Pahl, 2017) can – at times – seem to be something of a buzzword, perhaps a ‘turn’ (Bell & Pahl, 2018:105), in current research practice. We can ask, what exactly does co-production mean? To co-produce research meaningfully requires time, commitment and acceptance of what might not go to plan. Co-production is not safe or secure. It requires an epistemological shift and for researchers to accept what is described as a state of unknowing (e.g. Vasudevan, 2011; Hackett et al., 2017). We don’t know what belonging feels like for others. We may not be able to articulate it for ourselves. Co-production in the context of Crossing Borders opens a dialogue in which we can also ask why we want to know what belonging is and what belonging might be. What this is like in practice is often left unsaid, unwritten. An exhibition of this kind shows the co-productive processes, with the art-works working to perform them. The project itself highlights the complexity of these collaborative and co-productive relationships. It is developed in partnership with the Jyväskylä arts museum and the multicultural centre Gloria. These relationships represent the stable, structural, more ‘macro’ level co-production for research of this kind. The workshops themselves, delivered by artists and researchers, with participants who are – initially – public audiences, including recently arrived migrants and longer-term residents. These emergent collaborations are more temporally-defined, fluid, and open to interpretation and re-interpretation. In this sense Crossing Borders – and the project exhibition – exemplify and make visible the levels of collaboration involved in co-productive research.

What is evident from the exhibition is the diverse range of interpretations of the theme. Exhibits include documentary films about living and working in Finland, a personal film about a PhD defence, visual arts installations of movement, of moving, of being in a new place. A story about a bike and an accident. The exhibition is set out in two gallery spaces, each adjoining. You can move fluidly between spaces, there is no prescribed route. As an exhibition visitor there is the sense that this is work in progress – not in the sense that the exhibits are not finished – they are complete artworks. But work in progress in that they serve to punctuate the collaborative exploration of belonging embedded in the project. In developing spaces for these artworks to be created and curating the exhibition, the artworks, the objects, occupy a position that is both and between: both artworks and data and between artworks and data (this is something that Louise Atkinson is focusing on in the context of our research together in creative inquiry in linguistic landscapes).

Belonging is never complete, never finished. It changes. In this way it is slippery, and ever-changing. In our research in the North of England, we have seen a process of unbelonging, as people previously settled are made to feel unsettled through political changes and uncertainty. Perhaps what the artworks shown in the Crossing Borders exhibition teach us is that belonging is always in a state of becoming, always moving and fluid, understood in multiple, diverse ways. A dialogue. But the artworks also demonstrate the complexity of belonging. Anna Ruth, one of the exhibiting artists, states ‘I see belonging as a relationship which requires affirmative reciprocity’. To belong we must speak and feel that we are heard. We must develop what Dell Hymes described as the ‘freedom to have one’s voice heard’ and ‘a freedom to develop a voice worth hearing’ (1996:64). Belonging is implicated in both these. Is to belong to be heard? And how do we make ourselves heard? And what role do we play as researchers here? Whose voices get heard and whose voices are considered worth hearing? Why are some considered more worthy than others? To finish I will quote again from David Bell and Kate Pahl who describe a utopian co-productive approach as ‘within, against and beyond our present’ (2018:105):

We should fight for academia as a space in which to coproduce. Not to preserve an ideal form that never existed, but to transform it such that the utopian potentials immanent to co-production might be realised (p.114).

The Crossing Borders exhibition hints to us what these utopian potentials might be and different ways in which they might be realised. There is a contribution which can be made as the artworks are taken down from the exhibition and analysed – how can these collaborative relationships and the co-productive ethos be embedded in analytical processes? And how can belonging also continue to underpin the research as it moves towards analysis?

References

Bell, D. & Pahl, K. 2018. Co-production: towards a utopian approach, International Journal of Research Methodology, 21(1), pp.105-117. 

Facer, K. & Enright, B. 2016. Creating Living Knowledge: The connected communities programme, community-university partnersships and the participatory turn in the production of knowledge. Bristol: University of Bristol/AHRC Connected Communities Programme.

Facer, K. & Pahl, K. 2017. Valuing Interdisciplinary Collaborative Research: Beyond Impact. Bristol: Policy Press.

Hackett, A., Pahl., K. & Pool, S. 2017. In amongst the glitter and the squashed blueberries: crafting a collaborative lens for children’s literacy pedagogy in a community setting. Pedagogies: An International Journal, (12)1, pp.58-73.

Hymes, D. 1996. Ethnography, Linguistics, Narrative Inequality: Towards an Understanding of Voice. London: Taylor and Francis.

Vasudevan, L. 2011. An invitation to unknowing. Teachers College Record, 113(6), pp.1154–1174.

Written by Nina Sääskilahti, Roxana Sadvo & Sari Pöyhönen

Words of Belonging-kirjoittamistyöpaja järjesti 14.3. monikulttuurikeskus Gloriassa monikielisen kirjallisuusillan. Omia tekstejään omilla kirjoituskielillään lukivat ja niistä runoilija Olli-Pekka Tennilän ja yleisön kanssa keskustelivat Aya Chalabee ja Hamdam Zakirov. Illan päätteeksi Roxana Crisólogo Correa esitteli vetämäänsä monikielistä kirjallisuushanketta Sivuvalo. Julkaisemme muutamia katkelmia lämminhenkisen ja antoisan yhteisen iltamme hetkistä:¨

***

For the first half of Aya Chalabee’s reading I was squinting my eyes trying to read English translation projected onto a screen behind Aya’s back. After a while, with no perspective of getting her translated texts on paper, I abandoned my futile attempts to read the text from the screen and let myself enjoy Arabic language sensually.  The moment I let go brainy attempts to “make sense” of the language I got wrapped into warm sensation of soft brown felt touching my skin and translucent streams of airy silks, turquoise and cerulean…and then someone kind handed me the paper with English translations.

With Hamdam Zakirov reading in my mother tongue I had no chance to miss the meaning of his poems’ words. The way he handles the language feels like with every other line of his poems he opens a box of puzzles and throws them onto the carpet with languishing smile for me to assemble.  As I read I assemble a series of cinematic images flash – hard shadows on sunflowers, monoblue sky and strict, almost bulging horizon line between the monoblue sky and yellow-green field stretching away. Half way through his poem, perhaps earlier, I have assembled the given puzzle. I look at it and see a world separated from the one we live in by a thin translucent membrane reciprocal to warm human breath. That world is almost like ours, except there, the shadows on sunflowers are stricter and the air you breath in is sodden in melancholy, beautiful in its mundane sadness.

If I had to (not that I have to, but I want to) summarize the Glori(a)ous evening of March 14^th numerically (not that I’m good with math, but I wish I were), the members of sum would be:

• 3 poets (Olli-Pekka Tennilä aka moderator, Aya Chalabee and Hamdam Zakirov)
• 4 languages (Finnish, Arabic, Russian and English)
• 30 something audience members (you don’t expect me to write names of everyone present there, do you?)
• 2 Roxanas (one from Kazakhstan, one from Peru)
• 1 big everlasting cake (if placed high up in the sky, its shadow could cover Mattilaniemi campus)

It was a good evening.

Roxana Sadvo

***

Siinä he istuvat. Kolme kirjailijaa ja runoilijaa. He keskustelevat kirjoittamisesta, kielestä, kustantamisesta, kääntämisestä, yleisöistä. Olli-Pekka Tennilä kutsuu pohtimaan, mitä mahtuu kirjallisuuden kääntämisen mahdottomuuden ja vieraana kielenä opitun ”barbaarienglannin” väliin. ”Kieli on minulle turvapaikka”, nuori novellisti ja runoilija Aya Chalabee sanoo, ja pohtii arabiankielisen kirjallisuuden sukupolvia ja uuden sukupolven tarvetta muuttaa kirjoittamisen tyyliä ja teemoja. Maaginen realismi, ja vanhojen tabujen rikkominen – niistä on Aya Chalabeen kuvasto tehty. ”Kieli on tekninen väline – kuin punainen tai vihreä kynä. Maapallo on kaikille sama ja kirjallisuuden kieli universaali. Kielirajat ovat purettavissa.” Näin maalailee Hamdam Zakirov, jonka runous nojaa pitkään venäjänkieliseen perinteeseen. ”Vaikka äidinkieleni on uzbekki, en pidä itseäni uzbekistanilaisena runoilijana.”

 Kuuntelijana huomaan, kuinka hyvältä tuntuu kuljeskella kielten labyrintissa. Nautin Zakirovin oivaltavista kielikuvista, proosamaisesta runoudesta. Keskityn Ayan novellin englanninkieliseen käännökseen. Muutamat tutut arabiankieliset sanat auttavat kääntämään sivua. Kunpa arabiaa voisi kuunnella useamminkin tällä tavalla: ilman viitteitä uutisissa viljeltyyn allahuakbariin, pelkoon ja epätoivoon. Entäpä suomi? Siitä tuli tilaisuuden metakieli, kirjallisuudesta puhumisen väline. Kirjailijoille yhteinen, jokaiselle omanlainen.

Sari Pöyhönen

Written by Kaisa Hiltunen & Nina Sääskilahti

The interdisciplinary network Narrative & Memory – Ethics – Aesthetics – Politics organized a three-day symposium Fiction and Facts in Narratives of Political Conflict in Kristiansand, Norway. The symposium gathered approximately 40 researchers from fields such as literary studies, media studies and social sciences. The papers ranged from traditional textual analyses to broader analyses of culture and media and to presentations of empirical projects.

Although the range of topics was wide, the discussions kept returning to certain core issues. One of those was the researchers’ and artists’ role in today’s conflictual world. There seemed to be general agreement that we need to adopt a more active role in the society and to intervene through research in situations where we detect injustice and inequality, and that to do that we need courage. Moreover, the institutions where we work should find ways to recognize such less traditional ways of working that many researchers nowadays adopt: for example the practical and co-creative projects conducted with e.g. marginalized groups, children or refugees. It was also pointed out that many researchers do not want to adopt the role of a public commentator and that the researchers who are engaged in more traditional academic work, continue to have an important role, because from a more distanced perspective it may be easier to make insightful perceptions. However, from our perspective, these two stands need not to be separate as for example arts-based research offers many possibilities for combining participatory, engaged, critical, traditional and theoretically oriented insights.

In the discussion following the presentations, many referred to the perils of post-factuality. It seemed that in addition to the relationship of fact and fiction the relationship of truth and lies was equally often addressed. Both keynote lectures touched on this theme. Alison Landsberg analysed Jordan Peele’s film Get Out (2017) in the political context of “post post-racial” America, arguing that the film can be seen as a wake-up call that enables the viewer to see the reality in a different light and to see the truth through its narrative disruptions. She described the film as “horror vérité”, but it was not entirely clear what she meant by the term. She probably referred by vérité to the fictional world of the film where the characters were made to face the ugly truth: that behind the civilized facade racism is still alive and well.

The title of Timotheus Vermeulen’s keynote lecture was The Second Society: Fiction and a Method for Truth Telling. He used as examples the seemingly never-ending search for truth in certain television series and works of art; search for truth that only produces an endless number of new twists and leads. The cinematic devices in cases such as The Keepers are used to enhance the effect of suspense: the camera zooms in and out in search of details, thus creating an impression that there is always something new to be revealed that potentially challenges established truths.

We participated in the symposium with our paper “Remembering and Imagining the Past in Two WWII films”, in which we deal with the blurring of boundaries between fictional and factual elements in the documentary film Auf Wiedersehen Finnland and the feature film The Midwife. Both films deal with the romantic relationships of Finnish women and German soldiers during the Lapland War in 1944. In practice, we ended up discussing more our current project, Crossing Borders – Artistic Practices in Performing and Narrating Belonging. It was a pleasant surprise to find that several other projects had similar methods and aspirations to our Crossing Borders project.

Cigdem Esin and Aura Lounasmaa from the University of East London presented refugee stories that have emerged from a project conducted in the Calais “Jungle” camp and from Open Learning Initiative for Refugees and Asylum Seekers at the University of East London. One of the aims of these projects is to allow the refugees to tell their own truths through the stories, poetry and images they themselves have produced and chosen to be shown, resulting in a form of resistance.

Per Roar Thorsnes who comes from the field of artistic research described the dramaturgical narrative of the dance performance While They are Floating (choreographed by Hooman Sharifi and Carte Blanche) at the Norwegian National Company of Contemporary Dance. The performance takes as its starting point the personal narratives of refugees and it tries to express embodied experiences, that is to say, something that cannot be documented factually. In doing that, it enables the transformation of micro/individual level experience into macro/public level experience.

Another paper, by Michaela Marková titled “Addressing diversity and inclusion in contemporary Northern Irish/British Literature for children and young adults”, we did not hear, but later on found that we have overlapping interests with Marková, who is interested in exploring what role storytelling can have in creating reconciliation and understanding in the context of the “troubles” in Northern Ireland.

In the symposium it was not only the researcher’s relationship to activism and the pressing issues of contemporary world that emerged as a shared topic. Some of the presentations concentrated on engaged forms of artistic expression. Louise Mønster’s presentation dealt with science fiction poetry as a critical reflection of topical and pressing issues such as the climate change and the sustainability of our modern life style. This inspiring speech was followed by a similarly interesting analysis of other examples of engaged poetry. Hans Kristian S. Rustad talked about the upsurge of social responsibility, taking up Marie Silkeberg’s video poem as his example of artistic responses to today’s conflictual world.

We were not prepared that there would be so many papers discussing engaged research and art, in other words the role of artistic practice in creating understanding and challenging othering practices and more generally questioning the prevailing representations in various contexts, but that certainly was a pleasant surprise. As a whole, the conference was very rewarding. We made many new contacts and came home with our heads bursting with ideas and inspiration. So the mission of the symposium was truly accomplished. A heartfelt thanks to all the organizers and participants from us.

Written by Sari Pöyhönen

Opening speech in ETMU-Days, October 26, 2017.

Dear all participants of the ETMU-Days,

We live in turbulent times.

Times,

when Neo-Nazis are walking in the streets of Europe,

when refugees seeking asylum are seen as human cargo, and not as human beings,

when hate speech is becoming a standard,

when young men from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia are securitized,

when in the media Allahu Akbar indexes terrorism rather than a peaceful pray,

when social class positioning is bound up with language, place of origin, and skin color,

when some people are more equal than others,

when some people are considered illegal rather than undocumented because of political will,

when history repeats itself.

Times,

when multidisciplinary research is needed in order to re-analyse the societies we live in.

Today we have gathered together to discuss issues dealing with race, power, and mobilities. “Race” is linguistically, culturally, socially and societally loaded concept. By choosing this very topic we aim to critically unpack the meanings of race instead of enforcing presupposed beliefs about it. Thank you all presenters in ETMU-Days, who have taken the initiative and discuss different aspects of racialization.

Vi hoppas, att ni alla har givande ETMU-dagar, inspirerande diskussioner, har möjligheter att lära från varandra. Teman i ETMU-dagarna är viktig i alla Nordiska länderna. Vi forskare har mycket att göra och ge när man tänker om antirasistiskt arbete och hur man bör förändra samhällsinstitutioner så att de inte reproducerar strukturell diskriminering.

On behalf of the organisers, we want to welcome you all to ETMU Days.

Tervetuloa – Välkommen – Welcome!

Finding cinematic forms for belonging in the video workshop

In the video workshop, belonging and non-belonging were explored through short films. The workshop was open to all residents of Jyväskylä, who wanted to discuss belonging and learn filmmaking. We advertised the workshop in various social media groups and on local notice boards. We received ten enrollments and there were a couple of other interested people as well. We had usually about eight participants in the altogether 15 weekly meetings during the four- month period between late January and late May 2018. The participants, all of whom were adults, came from Afghanistan, Finland, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Tanzania and Turkey. The meetings took place in the international atmosphere of the Multicultural Centre Gloria, which was already familiar to many of the participants. It was a safe and an encouraging environment for the workshop.

I worked as a co-leader and researcher in the workshop. Video journalist and teacher Ronan Browne worked as my pair. It was Ronan’s practical knowledge of filmmaking and teaching filmmaking that made the workshop possible in the first place. We planned the workshops together. The different phases of filmmaking (pre-production, production and post-production) gave the project a structure, but otherwise we did not have a strict, predetermined plan. Quite soon, we noticed that a good way to start the meetings was a discussion. We picked some themes for the discussions, for example, emotions, sense experiences or important places, but often these themes were just starting points for meandering discussions.

Discussing belonging

In the very first meeting, we made mind maps about belonging, attempting to chart what the term encompasses. Belonging is a huge and broad topic, as we came to notice many times. We asked everyone to bring to the second meeting a meaningful object. The purpose of the object was to inspire discussion about belonging and to get the group members to know each other a little more closely. Many brought practical things like a passport, while others brought personal items full of memories such as a piece of jewelry.

The discussions were also a good moment to hear how people were doing, what everyone was up to and how the film ideas were developing. Everyone was free to say as much as they felt comfortable saying. Some shared personal experiences and some preferred to say less. The idea of the discussions was also to help the participants in their personal film projects.

Planning the films

How to express ideas and experiences of belonging through film? How to find a specific cinematic form for those ideas? The actual film project started from these questions. The first challenge was to define a topic for the film and then gradually give it cinematic form. The participants weighed the pros and cons of fiction and documentary. It turned out that some form of non-fictional film would be the most practical solution because a fiction film would require more time and other resources. Ronan gave tips for ideation, for example how to sum up the idea of the film in one sentence.

At about mid-point of the project, we arranged a get-together, where participants of all the three workshops (Video Workshop, Writing Workshop and Art Workshop) could meet, get to know each other and present their ideas to the other participants. At this moment, most of the participant already had a clear idea of what their films would be about. In the workshop meetings, working in pairs and in dialogue with the others was encouraged. The planning phase also included watching and analyzing short films. One of those films was Ghosts (2009) by Jan Ijäs. Ghosts is an experimental documentary about life in a Finnish reception center and it roused the only heated discussion during the project. Some of the participants had personal experience of living in a refugee center and they viewed the film rather critically. Who has the right to tell about life in a refugee center, was one of the questions asked.

Filming starts

The pre-production phase lasted for five weeks until late March, when filming workshops started. From then on, the participants did various exercises with the camera, for example arranging and filming an interview and filming a short action scene indoors or outdoors. The material for the short film every participant filmed in his or her free time. After filming it was time for editing, the most time consuming phase of the project. It took about a month to edit the films. During editing, we no longer had time for any other activities. However, some of us continued to meet at the editing studio of the University of Applied Sciences. A couple of participants had their own editing equipment at home. Many of the participants had some earlier experience of filmmaking, but there were some, who had no experience at all, so they had to learn editing from the beginning. Luckily, there was always someone to help in the tricky parts. I am sure that most of the participants would have appreciated if they had had a few extra days for editing. During and after the editing I interviewed each of the participants, asking them to reflect on the different aspects of the project.

Six films made it to the film night on May 23, which was the premiere. The seventh film was finished later. The screening was open for everyone and it took place in Gloria. All the filmmakers were present and they answered questions from the audience. It was a successful evening. The films, which are diverse in terms of content and form, demonstrate the broadness of the theme of belonging. Through his or her films, each participant manages to express a particular aspect of belonging. For some it is something very personal and intimate, for others something that can be shared by many. In the final analysis, I think, all the films were in one way or another connected to personal experiences. The seven films are:

• The Defence by Jukka Jouhki
• A Good Friend by Jamal Piruzdelan
• Ikuisesti koti-ikävä by Tina Pienkuukka
• My Cycling Tale by Ombeni Mwanga
• Six Breaths to Belonging by Suvi Mononen
• Smells of Belonging by Hazal Türken
• Tunes of Belonging by Adriana Zamudio

After the workshop

It was a busy and intensive four months, a learning process in many ways. It was fascinating to be a part of this project, which often made me, a researcher, question my own role. Sometimes I took part in the group activities and exercises; sometimes I was more of an observer. In many of the workshop meetings, one or two other members of the Crossing Borders research team were present, took part in the discussions, and brought in topics dealt with in the other workshops. They took care that the discussions were recorded and they made ethnographic field notes, which gave me the freedom to be present and follow everything that was said and done.

Just when I started to get some distance to the project and began to be able to organize my thoughts, preparations for the Crossing Borders exhibition started. At the time of the workshop we did not yet know, whether the exhibition would be possible. When we received extra funding for the exhibition, we knew that it would actually take place and we were very happy and excited. At the time of writing this, the seven films have been exhibited in gallery Ratamo for one month and more than 700 people have seen the exhibition!

Time for analysis

One year ago, the video workshop was in full progress, the participants were writing their synopses and testing their one-sentence summaries. Now that the successful exhibition as well is over, it is finally time to start going through the data and start analyzing what has actually happened. This is an interesting and challenging task because of the multidisciplinary and multi-method nature of the project. If I think about just the video workshop, it was about many things. For me the most fascinating questions right now are: 1) What kind of cinematic expressions of belonging did the participants create? 2) Which forms of participation (and belonging) emerged in the workshop? 3) How sense of belonging was negotiated during the workshop and how the workshop affected the participants’ personal sense of belonging?

***

Written by Kaisa Hiltunen

The Words of Belonging workshop run by Nina Sääskilahti, Katri Talaskivi and Olli-Pekka Tennilä was open for all interested in discussing belonging and non-belonging. The group consisted of 7 participants coming from different backgrounds, nationalities and language groups. 

No prior experience of creative writing was expected. Some of the participants were actively engaged in creative writing, whereas other were more engaged with other areas of expression. We met altogether 8 times in Jyväskylä Art Museum or the Gallery Ratamo and then later on in the University of Jyväskylä studio facilities.

Our working methods were writing, listening and discussing. In the first meeting everybody brought an object with them that in a way or another made them think about belonging and non-belonging. Through listening to stories and thoughts on these objects of belonging we familiarized ourselves with each other in the group. In the weekly meetings we continued to write about belonging and non-belonging, listening to the readings of the texts produced, sharing our experiences and thoughts on belonging. The topics we touched  included e.g. mobility, displacement, freedom, language barriers, taking the position of an outsider, voluntary non-belonging, difficult memories, family and other social ties etc.    

Visit one of our meetings as a listener: 

There were no prior instructions on which topics we would discuss, rather each picked up what seemed pressing or interesting. Writing assignments were used for inspiration. Once we wrote and discussed moments permeated with feelings of either belonging or non-belonging. In another workshop meeting the workshop members brought a picture or a work of art that in one way or another inspired or involved meaningful aspects of belonging.

Our starting point when we planned our workshop was the idea that we would cross the boundaries between different art forms and genres. Multimediality as a chosen approach included the idea that producing texts was not the only form of expression in our workshop. We encouraged participants to use e.g. visual methods as well. 

Sound had been chosen as one of our expressive tools. Olli-Pekka Tennilä led us through the history and world of sound poetry. As a whole, reading and listening embedded in writing were important for us. We listened to each others’ languages, the rhythms, tones, silences. 

Towards the end of the workshop our main topic of discussion was the creative works everybody was intending to produce. The group worked dialogically, collaboratively and co-creatively, sharing ideas, feedback and thoughts. One of the members of our group lent her voice to be used in another person’s work, and help was provided in visualizing, filming and translating. Practising art enhanced belonging to a temporary community of art makers. 

Only a small fraction of the works produced in the workshop were on display. Short stories, poems, visual texts and autobiographical writings were created during the workshop. In the Crossing Borders exhibition on display were Shashank’s rhythmic poem, Deniz’s multilingual sound poem, Jo’s audio letter, Luciana’s politically engaged video, Ufuk’s filmic short story and Roxana’s video poem as well as Luciana’s paintings, Deniz’s and Roxana’s sculptures. Musician Panu Artemjeff has composed a song based on Ufuk’s text The Long Day.  

During the spring of 2018 we organized two literary nights with premiers of the sound and video poems. In these events the audience had a possibility to discuss belonging and non-belonging with the artists of the Words of Belonging workshop. We also organized a literary night in the Multicultural Center Gloria. Our guests were poets Aya Chalabee and Hamdam Zakirov and the novelist Roxana Crisologo Correa from the Sivuvalo project.

Written by Nina Sääskilahti

In the art workshop, artists specialized in different modes of expression explored the ways in which belonging and feelings related to it could be studied through art. The group was formed by inviting artists operating in the area of Central Finland to participate. The workshop consisted of three meetings at the Jyväskylä Art Museum during winter 2018. In these meetings, the group contemplated on their personal feelings of belonging and discussed how these relate to the communal and sociatal levels of belonging. The participants also started to plan and sketch their own artworks dealing with the subject. The paintings, photographs, installations, and the sound work and animation film created in the process were displayed in Crossing Borders exhibition in Gallery Ratamo in winter 2019. 

Written by Antti Vallius

The theatre workshops that explored the relationship between languages and belonging were organized in Jyväskylä in the fall of 2020. The workshops were run by the theatre artist Annu Sankilampi and Saara Jäntti. Sari Pöyhönen and Pauliina Puranen participated as ethnographers. The multilingual workshop participants were recruited through the Multicultural Center Gloria and via personal networks of the organizers. There were all in all 11 participants in the workshops during the fall.

The workshops were open for anyone interested. Most of the participants did not have any earlier experience with drama – even though many of them had done something related to theatre, such as dancing, playing music, or writing a movie script. The workshop group met every Wednesday night throughout the semester. In September the meetings were held in Nuorten taidetyöpaja, Matara and from October on in the Juomatehdas studio of the local theatre company, Teatterikone. Moreover, the workshop participants got to visit the Matkalla maan keskipisteeseenexhibition at the Jyväskylä Art Museum and familiarize themselves with the Visual Thinking Strategies method with the museum lector Sirpa Turpeinen.

Every workshop meeting began with warm-up exercises that helped the group connect with each other and their own physicality. These warm-ups encouraged the participants to improvise and to create something together, after which the group moved on to the actual program of the evening. Overall, the exercises prepared the participants to create their own scenes for the performance in smaller groups. The performance was planned for December. The visit to the Art Museum also gave inspiration to some of the drama exercises. Once the participants got to know each other better, they also started sharing their own stories and language skills with each other.

In October, the participants discussed what the name of the workshop series – “languages of belonging” – could mean to each one of them. After the discussion, the group was divided into smaller groups of 2-3 people that then started to create their own scenes based on these ideas with the help of Annu Sankilampi. In the end three very different scenes were created: one about international flat mates, another one where a border between a sign language and a spoken language was crossed by friendship, and a third one that emphasized the importance of getting to speak one’s own language.

The pandemic situation of the fall 2020 did affect the workshops quite a bit: in all the gatherings, the participants wore masks or viziers, and used hand sanitizer. The meetings were sometimes divided into smaller groups, to make sure the number of people present was small enough given the safety instructions. The original plan was to perform the 3-scene play at the Jyväskylä Art Museum in front of a live audience, but because of the pandemic, the scenes ended up being shot on camera without any audience. The recording was sent to people who had signed up for the performance, so that they could see what had been created during the fall.

Written by Pauliina Puranen with Saara Jäntti & Sari Pöyhönen

The Communities of Belonging workshop was planned and organised in collaboration at the Multicultural Centre Gloria in fall 2021.The co-leaders of the workshop were Sonya Sahradyan, a project researcher, and Jassin Rezai, youth work and community coordinator. Sari Pöyhönen was involved in the workshop as an ethnographer. The workshop participants were ten, and they were originally from Afghanistan, Armenia, Bangladesh, Finland, Ghana, Pakistan, Poland, Syria and the USA.  

The workshop aimed at discussing belonging and non-belonging to communities with local residents from diverse backgrounds. The workshop was open to everyone interested in sharing and discussing their stories and experiences of community belonging in creative and artistic ways. No prior art experience was required. The languages of the workshop were English and Finnish. The workshop included three sessions, which included different activities and discussions in pairs and/or with a group. 

What we have in common 

We started the workshop with an icebreaker activity by dividing participants into pairs. During this activity, each pair talked, for example, about hobbies, interests, experiences and found interesting and important things that they had in common, then shared them with the group. What all the participants had in common was moving to Jyväskylä and being a student in Jyväskylä. This icebreaker activity supported participants in getting to know each other and feeling a sense of connectedness to the group. 

Meaningful objects

Another activity was related to meaningful objects, which the participants were asked to bring beforehand. Each participant brought a meaningful object and described what special meaning it had for them. The meaningful objects were a letter from a former student, a t-shirt from community groups, a picture of parents, a photo of a favourite pet, a drawing made by close children, a pen and a watch, and a gift from a father which was the only thing the participant could bring to Finland. The participants’ stories about meaningful objects were heartfelt and touching, and they supported understanding and discussing belonging from different perspectives and angles. These stories also facilitated building a close connection among the participants and learning more about each other’s lived experiences. 

Gallery Walk

Gallery Walk was used as a discussion activity to promote participants’ active engagement and pair/group work in a creative way. For this purpose, we prepared five questions about belonging to communities, wrote each one on a poster, and put them in various places around the room to create five stations. Participants were divided into pairs to start at a different station. Each pair moved from one station to another by discussing a question, writing responses on creative handouts, and attaching them to the poster. After visiting all the stations, the participants came back to the group to discuss together their thoughts and ideas concerning the following five questions displayed at five stations.

• What does belonging to a community mean to you? 
• In which communities do you feel a sense of belonging? Why?
• Why do you want to be part of a community?
• Why don’t you want to be part of a community?
• Have you ever experienced being excluded from a community? Which community? Why?

As the participants noted, Gallery Walk enabled them to discuss and share their opinions and concerns about community belonging and their experiences of being included or excluded in different contexts and at different times. In addition, it made it possible to describe how belonging and community are related or unrelated and how they positively or negatively affect each other. 

Collages

Making collages was one of the main activities of the workshop. The participants had an opportunity to utilise their artistic skills and to make a vision board – remembering the future. Through their collages, the participants presented how they would like to see communities in future. The participants’ collages focused on either one or several communities, and they were related to nature, sports, education, workplace, social inclusion and human relations, for instance. Some participants were familiar with making a collage with newspapers and magazines, but it was a new experience for the others. In short, collage-making was an enjoyable artistic activity for the participants to reflect on their vision for future changes in communities.

Artworks 

With the participants, we also listened to and watched the artworks (a letter and films) produced by the other workshop participants involved in this research project. We had an interesting and insightful discussion with the participants who commented and shared their own stories related to the artworks. These artworks raised the questions on belonging and non-belonging in home and host communities, and what is needed to change or not change to facilitate integration into a new community. 

A reflection on the workshop 

In the end, the participants were asked to reflect on the workshop sessions through different cards. Each participant chose one card and described his/her feelings and experiences concerning the workshop sessions. What most of the participants emphasised was related to gaining a better understanding of the concept of belonging, sharing and learning from each other’s experiences about community belonging, expanding social connections and feeling comfortable and included within the group. Overall, these workshop sessions were beneficial not only from the perspective of research but also from the perspective of raising the participants’ awareness about belonging to communities. 

Written by Sonya Sahradyan